An Unlikely Upbringing
by MagicBlvd
Summary: A story of a childhood, a Pirate Lord father, a gentle loving Indian mother, and a son with the mind to become exactly as his dad: a sailor in love with the sea.
1. Little Wicked Jacky

**An Unlikely Upbringing**

**Chapter One: Little Wicked Jacky**

A typhoon had struck the British Colonial port city within India that night, and all the surrounding areas. The typhoon was fierce, rocking about the ships in the port and temporarily suspending any naval activity, lucky enough for a family of two soon to be three. As a pirating ship just outside the port town rocked and swayed madly with the blustering, fearsome winds a woman squeeled in pain, holding her stomach and clutching the hand of another man. With her fair share of curses and sweat, a baby was brought into the world. Jack Teague, son of Captain Teague, Captain of the pirating ship the woman and the newborn were currently aboard. It was from the very birth of Jack Teague that the love of the ocean was instilled into him, as sea blood and the life of a pirate was his destiny forever...

It was a particularly hot day some years later as Jack Teague, brushing his unruly brown hair out of his eye, ran inside his small home by the sea with an excited grin spread accross his face. "Father's home!" Jack was at the age where even if his father, Captain Teague, did scare him, it wasn't enough to drive Jack away. His mother, Nima, stood in the kitchen above a boiling pot of water with a similar grin and a nod, pointing out the window with one of her delicate fingers towards her view of the port's bay.

"His ship is around that edge, I saw the colors," Nima moved towards Jack who had approached her, he being only a small child still at the tender age of seven, it had been his birthday not too long ago, perhaps thats why the Captain was returning to their small home with the perfect view of the bay upon a crest in the village. With his mother's warm embrace around him, Jack gave another childish smile, that Nima knew one day to disappear. "Go greet him."

Jack jumped at the chance, but with all his avidity, he always forgot to say goodbye to his mother as he rushed down the steps of the his home and the crest side that followed. But being a child of the sea, a boy of the water, he rarely had his balance on land and as with any other day, along the path to the docks, he had skinned his knee shown from his already torn up breeches that Nima would one day get around to mending for the umpteenth time. "Father!" Jack yawped from one of the docks as his father approached in a small dingy with a wry smile upon his scarred face, a fresh wound accross it. Jack frowned ever-so-slightly, knowing his mother would be displeased as soon as she saw the fresh cut, and worry herself over all that he does in his long absences but she knew that for as long as he was gone, he coud at least stay for a week or two. Jack bartered often with his mother playfully on the extent of each stay. He only hoped he could win some money to bribe the East India Trading Company into letting him work for them, he wanted the money and he heard they paid fairly well and if all ended up right, he'd be with the crew on a ship sailing somewhere to deliver something. His father's tales could only bring him so close to the ocean that he had grown an instant affinity to.

"Run home, tell her I'm coming," demanded with a softer edge to his voice Teague as he pushed Jack gently on the back towards the crest steps.

There was a large amount of discipline that was always in Jack when it came to his father so to no surprise he hurried up the steps to his home, nearly falling again and cursing (words he'd obviously learned from his dad) his clumsiness and opened the door. "He wanted to--"

"He's coming, I know," smiled Nima. Jack, to a certain extent, had always marveled at the way his mother knew everything before he spoke. There were obvious reasons but some were perplexing as well. Teague never told him to do that before, how did she know now? Jack shrugged to himself and stepped into his small bedroom that only held a small hammock hooked to the cieling, a chest beneath it full of his random assortment of "treasure", or worthless junk he found interesting and beneath a loose floorboard his collected money. With a few more odd jobs and gamblings with his mother, he was sure to have enough. Nima wouldn't be pleased to know that at the age of seven her son was already an expert with earning money and cheating people out of theirs, however.

By nighttime Jack had barely the mind to listen to his father any longer. It was so often that he forgot all the work Teague put him to, the captain believed in "tough love" while his mother believed in a gentle touch. He knew why his mother loved him and why he loved her, they were complete and total opposites. With some minor protest, Jack was sentenced to his hammock, and at the foot of it, sitting on his chest of mediocre treasure was Captain Teague himself, with a smile on his face--a truly rare thing. Jack could only smile back.

"Jacky," he began, a pet name that he'd been using since Jack was a baby and immediately it caught on with the family.

However, Captain Teague's stay was short-lived, as he returned to the sea only a few days after he arrived. Nima looked at Jack, who was beaming and handed him over the proper price for her lost bet. "I'll use it well," Jack promised, though he wasn't entirely sure if his intentions of working with the Trading Company, a notable enemy to the family, was the best, most heart-felt intention that he could use the money for.

**This was something that popped into my head after seeing AWE for the second time. Yes, it's only been out for four days and I've already seen it twice. Leave me alone, I actually found it amusing. So, anyways, I got this idea and I decided to share. I don't care if the information is correct, I don't care if it doesn't exactly follow some of those Disney issued books, because it's a fanfiction and I reserve the right to not be persecuted for a little mishap with knowledge. Not meaning to be rude. Oh and yes, Teague is going to be Jack's former last name and primary one as told here. **

**I don't know if I'll continue, so I'd appreciate some feedback on what you think. Or simply a story alert or favorite, that's appreciated as well.**


	2. A Father, A Son

**An Unlikely Upbringing**

**Chapter Two: A Father, A Son**

_"Jacky," The elder of the two Jack Teagues, the Captain of the Seas (as Jacky so lovingly referred to him as), grinned a rare smile and sat on the edge of the "bed", taking little comfort on the only box of "treasures" Little Jack owned. With avidity not normally displayed at bedtime. But ever so attentively Little Jack listened as his father spun tales earnestly of the seas, Davy Jones, ghosts, mermaids, sirens, and of other oceanic creatures that lurked in the deep. By the end of it all, Little Jack was sleeping soundly in his hammock and a gentle kiss was pressed against his forehead and the ruffle of his thick, dark hair as Captain Teague left the room to greet Nima, his lovely wife, in the doorway._

_Nima smiled into their goodbye kisses, though the smile was to hide the pain of being left as Captain Teague, even before sunrise, had departed. Again._

A certain amount of brooding left Jack and his pocketful of money somehow meaningless, cast against the rocks against the shore without a care to the world, yet his breakfast had been bizarrely eager considering his less than friendly demeanor ever morning. Jack, to say the least, was not a morning person. Truth behind his eager? The bribery that would cast him a working man at the age of seven as he dashed a beeline to the docks of the East India Trading Company and the idea of money in his pocket, earned fair and easily, or as easy as it gets being a man of the seas. A truth he will never admit to be the reason behind his determinations and ambitions. His mother, Nima, was his life and at the threat of death, he would go to the World's End for his life. His father left her poor for weeks at a time, forcing her son and herself to eat stale bread and peg for spare change, the two performing odd tasks only to make ends meet. Jack needed a sense of stability in life devoid of normalcy. He needed money for schooling, clothes, and the life's pleasures for a young boy willing to live his childhood as the poor kid with a lack of a father for nearly ten months of every year.

However, Jack was exception in three ways: He was exceptionally good looking, exceptionally sharp and witty, and exceptionally and inexplicably short. Jack counted his many blessings for his first two gifts from whoever steered him clear of danger, the big being upstairs. Though, dreaded the aspect that was otherwise viewed as a sacrifice towards his good looks, a height issue that was no more explainable than female patterned baldness or a bearded woman—Jack was cursed with something always. Nima, his beautiful Indian mother, was average—not too tall, nor too short—and she was fine amongst the other woman. As for his father? Elder Jack Teague was a tall man, no doubt about that so where did this problem have its evil root? Jack had no idea but he only prayed to that big being with the pistols upstairs to let the Trading Company see beyond his height to the ambition and hard work ethic installed in him and hire him—he' deal with his mother when things were certain, if they ever would be. It took forever to pool together his money, what if half the time spending it for food.

With great, confident strides, Jack stopped at the man in a white wig at the end of the dock, a piece of parchment and a quill in either of his strong-appearing grips. "Sir?" Jack politely inquired, staring up at the tall man, feeling as though he was an ant. "I need your help, sir."

"You lost, boy?" The man leaned down with a gentle smile. Adults always treated him that way.

"No, I know exactly where I am and it's where I want to be," Jack began to pace the dock as he stared at his feet, now self consciously aware of the many scuffs in his worn boots. "I want to work for your company, sir. I'm a hard worker, my father even says so. I learn quickly and I need the money. I have some as a….hiring fee?" He extracted from his coat pocket his rather large sum of cash and sifted through it with his hands. The man clad in the white wig gazed upon the loot with a smile and picked a piece with his fingers, rolling it between his index and middle.

"You? A worker? So young and so desperate?"

"My mother and I—"

"Jack Teague." The man seemed disgusted and threw the coin back. "Captain Jack Teague, that dirty rat, your father, is he boy?"

"Well—" Jack felt offended. Thoroughly offended. His father was no rat! His father, though dubious in his ways, was a good man. A fine man. Nay, a perfect example of everything Jack so very strongly longed for with all his salty heart. Salt of the sea. Salt of his love. "Can we leave him out of this, perhaps?"

"Well, give me half of your money boy and I'll put you to work. Hope you don't think you'll be on a ship soon. You have to go to get into shape before that, and ripen." The wigged man looked over Jack, only guessing his young age correctly and continuing to scribble on his parchment.

With a grateful grin Jack stuffed his spending money into his pocket and looked at the man who had already barked Jack's schedule. Every morning before school, every afternoon after and no tardy arrivals will be accepted or punishment thereafter. "Jack Teague…that your name?" The man finally asked.

"Yes sir."

"Jack's a nice name." With the sun rising high, the man crossed Jack's path and off the splintered deck, leaving Jack in awe. His father hated these men but why? He was only doomed to find out.

**Well, it's my second chapter and Jack's got himself some plans and I have his father a first name. I feel accomplished, to be honest. Nothing feels better than knowing that even though you're busy you can still do something mildly important. Though I apologize for miss-spelling or grammatical errors, I've been so busy lately I hardly have the time to read them afterwards and I don't trust my family to read them, so anyways…Hope you liked it.**

**Thanks to:**

**Reviewers: Sparrows-Luv1345, sd13, DCoD, and Queen of Halloween**

**Anyone and everyone who alerted and added the story as their favorites, I love all of you and you know EXACTLY who you are!**

**I'd appreciate the response, I want ideas and I want feedback. Alerts and favorites are perfect if anything. **


	3. Free As a Sparrow

**An Unlikely Upbringing**

**Chapter Three: Free As a Sparrow**

"Mom?" Jack tugged at his moth's dress sleeve, impatiently awaiting to have his currently unstated inquiry answered by what he believed to be an all-knowing character of his life who was currently talking to someone that had the equivalent IQ of a goldfish, and perhaps the mythical memory, and in other words Jack just same didn't like this woman speaking to his mother in the middle of the market place located conveniently close to their cottage of sorts. His persistent tugging continued until Nima was forced to gaze down at her son.

Exasperatedly she finally paid an ounce of attention to him, "What, Jack?"

"Dad said he escaped an island. How, again?"

The face of Nima changed from slightly agitated at her son easily transforming into the pirate of his father to a bemused smile, a simper, "Sea turtles."

"Sea turtles…" Jack repeated the phrase in the similar mysterious tone his father often took on during their small bits of story time when he was actually housed in the cottage Nima and Jack Teague pleasured in calling their home. Quaint and secure, as they considered it.

Though Jack—for a brief moment or two—preoccupied with his father's bizarre tales, contemplated the entire day of his worth with the bewigged man on the dock previously met earlier in the morning. Nima still didn't know and Jack was still examining all aspects of his excuses for credibility. Luckily, his part on thinking of the story made Nima only presume his concentration to be on how one would go about escaping from an island with sea turtles in mind, not legitimacy of his lies he'd feed her until she finally figured it all out.

So with all these thoughts in mind, Jack found himself sooner than he expected tucked safely beneath his quilt in hammock, dreaming of the next day's work and money, and Nima sprawled underneath her blanket in a nightgown the next room over.

Now, with the invention of alarm clocks not yet in the market of anyone's mind, Jack had fed his lie early to his mother to. "My teacher wants to know if I can go in early, something about tests and exceptional minds…" Jack made it seem dull, only to hide his excitement.

Nima was always awake at the hours before his school time, imagining all the trouble her captain got himself into and what Jack was growing into, so it was no trouble on her part to startle Jack, as he always awoke that way, into getting ready for school. Any sort of decent mother, such as Nima, would be so proud of her star son, even if he were a grumpy, bitter boy to be around in the morning time. Yet, extraordinarily, this morning turned out to be just as the previous: unordinary.

Though it wasn't entirely as eager as the last one, Jack was still somehow less sore as he hopped onto the dining chair, ate his breakfast of eggs and sausage, slipped on his boots and coat (only on the persistence of his mother) and skipped out the door. Due to his sea legs, he didn't get very much distance before tripping and skinning his leg, again.

In all his haste, Jack arrived early to the docks, so early the man in the white wig had not arrived, and only the ship beside him and the crewmen on it filled the air with some bit of noise, though not very boisterous. "Oi! Boy!" a dark skinned man stared from the deck to Jack, a grin across his tired features. "Get up 'ere and help us while you're waitin'"

"O-Okay!" Jack's heart skipped a full beat at the chance he was handed so easily, scaling the side of the slightly barnacle-encrusted ship to the deck filled with men of dark skin, pale skin, sun burnt skin, and average skin. Long hair, short hair, mangy hair, and dreaded hair were all around him. Diversity on every level. "What do you want me to do, sir?"

"Stop talkin' so formal, first, boy," the man barked as he handed him a wooden crate, slightly heavy. "Take the rum to the storage and snap to!" Jack learned that to translate to "be quick!" so that's what he did.

His agility aboard the vessel came natural, even as it rocked about the water. It was the salty sea pumping through his veins and the ocean water air filling his lungs. For the first time, Jack did not slip and scrape his knee, nor did he tumble down any flight of stairs, or slam painfully into a wall. No, Jack Teague was as free as a bird on that ship. Jack Teague felt as free as a sparrow.

**I know it's not much and my chapters haven't been too long, but I really liked to end it there. It just seemed right.**

**Thanks to my reviewers: Landorie and Midnight Island**

**Thanks for the alerts and the favorites as well! Much appreciated as all of these will be now. Please give me some sign of feedback (alert, favorite, review). **

**Thanks for the support!**


	4. The Bewigged Man's Change

**An Unlikely Upbringing**

**Chapter Four: The Bewigged Man's Change**

Admiral Jarrod Sandford regarded Jack Teague from a distance, measuring his worth to the Company and possibly the navy. True enough, the boy was radiating the discipline needed in either field and with a satisfactory smile, Admiral Sandford prided himself in his selection between Jack Teague and another soliciting boy of a slightly older age than Jack, but more weighted and less energetic and determined.

The boy darted back and forth on the ship, carrying barrels, thick packages, wooden crates no doubt splintering his rough hands, and bags of assorted goods, all of which were to be inventoried later before being shipped to whatever country called for it. Jack wiped the sweat off his brow, examining his hands now caked in a thin but still existent layer of filth. His mother would question his sordid state the second he got home. Would his excuse continually be the rising aggression of his bullies? No, she couldn't know about that. No one knew about that, not even Captain Teague.

Perhaps when he began to earn his money, when his mother was not so poor anymore, and when he could manage on his own as well as any of them, they wouldn't laugh. No more would they call him offensive names based on his father's ongoing absences, his miniature size, or the class within society his family had found themselves in. Yes, Jack was determined to fly over them and succeed.

A crate was shoved into his arms, he rushed down through the galley to the storage, setting it by the other crates and running back up just as the crewman passed off the final barrel. The captain turned to the young lad and smiled, messing his already unruly, somewhat short and very spiky hair. A grin spread of the tanned features of the captain as he complimented Jack, "Good work, boy. You'd make one fine sailor some day." As he clapped the shoulder of the boy, Jack felt the cold of metal being pressed into his hands, to find a small sum of money there. Before being able to question the captain, he was gently shoved in the direction of the railing.

Stowing away his small earnings, Jack descended the rope ladder on the side of ship and hit the dock with a small "thud", his shoes causing the noise. Knowing that school would be starting soon, Jack bade the crewmen and, especially, the Captain a farewell before beginning his rushing towards his home. Purposely he had left his bedroom window open, climbing in through it and grabbing a hold of his beaten bookbag before climbing just as swiftly out the window and down the steps to the schoolyard, where the unsavory characters he had constantly pictured winning battles with were glaring at him as he approached the semi-splintered door of the school house.

Clutching the straps of his bookbag tighter in his fists, Jack set forward towards the building, making to move straight past his usual bullies. But one noticed him, a Richard Gardner. "Jack!" he called but at the precise moment Jack pivoted on his heel to face him, Maria Livingston brushed past the group of boys and instantly their attention was focused on the pretty blonde of their class. Relieved, Jack rushed through the threshold of the school building, taking a seat in his usual desk near the back of the classroom, smiling at the good fortune the day was bringing him.

In a spacious, barely embellished office Admiral Sandford stood at courteous attention, watching as the man he was speaking with peered through the window towards the prospering bay. Growing tired of his patient waiting at the silence of his superior, Admiral Sandford politely pressed, "Lord Beckett?" This led the icy blue eyes of the man to be fixated on the Admiral instead, something somewhat unsettling to the Admiral, causing him to almost wish that he had let the man be. With a sigh, he continued, "Do you really intend to let him go? A young one, yes, but a useful worker. The captain he was serving even believes so. Please reconsider, in years to come he may prove a useful tool, in the least."

There was a sigh from the man as he averted his gaze from the Admiral towards his desk, a letter written there, then towards the Admiral. "And until then, what use is he to the Company?"

"I watched him this morning, sir. He was an enduring worker, to say the least. To my recollection, I don't think he ever paused once." The Admiral was satisfied at how this statement led the Lord of the East India Trading Company to re-examine his thoughts over the young working boy, Jack Teague. The truth behind his former decision to relieve Jack of his position was his father's choice to go associating with pirates and perform criminal acts against the government. A pirate by association, supposed Lord Beckett. However, perhaps he had taken after his mother? A former gypsy woman noticing the flaws of her career, settling down in India to raise her child. Nima had learned the difference between what she wanted and what was right, as Captain Teague never had.

"Then I will trust Jack Teague to be under your list of responsibilities, and I will see to it that you are punished first should he decide to rebel," Lord Beckett's cold eyes stared at the man in front of him as he crossed his office towards the cherry wood desk, lifting the delicate parchment paper from the desk and eyeing it with particular interest, before adding, overlooking the letter to the Admiral once more, "I will be awaiting that moment when his usefulness is truly useful, trust me on that."

Admiral Sandford was dismissed and escorted off the Beckett estate, all the while smiling at his victory over the Lord of the Company, grinning as he resumed his usual post that afternoon.

Directly after school, Jack headed off to the docks, slinging his bookbag off his shoulders into the sand, away from the rising tide, by a large boulder to mark its presence easily on the beach. He eyed the white wigged man he had not seen before in the morning and casually strolled up him. "You weren't here this morning," he said in a quiet, more questioning rather than accusing tone.

"I was, I was just surveying your work, Jack," Admiral Sandford smiled. "Lord Beckett has shown interest in you." Of course, the admiral purposefully left out the bit about the the aforementioned lord's interest being that of wanting to relieve him of his duties. "You have proven to be a hard worker. You will continue assisting the captain with their ships in any way they ask of you and if there is to not be a ship here, you will assist me in whatever belittling duties the Navy insists upon giving me. Understand?"

Jack nodded, smiling as the Admiral added, "Don't mention to the Navy what I just said, clear?" Once more, the boy nodded.

He headed off the to docked ship, thinking all the while that perhaps the white wigged man was not the pompous jerk he had once been, but a kind hand admist all the evil in Jack's world. In a way, Admiral Sandford was the other half to his father, the half that was kind, gentle, and humorous as his father never was.

**A slightly longer chapter, that's the least I can offer. To answer something some of you may be wondering: No, Lord Beckett as mentioned here is NOT Cutler Beckett, but his dearest father. I'd appreciate any suggestions for a first name for him, I can't seem to find anything that sounds right with the title. So I'd be grateful for any and all suggestions! Anyways, do tell me what you think so far. I hope to tie everyone into this, well everyone linked with Jack's past and shed some light on aspects of the trilogy that got barely any limelight at all.**

**Heres to my reviewers (Queen of Halloween, kcpiratey05, Dizzles the Dizzy, DCoD): You are awesome and I love you! I also enjoy reading your usernames. **

**Feedback is love, so please alert, favorite, or review! **


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